The main room of the Anguilla Music Academy was set with cocktail tables covered with orange and white tablecloths for the welcome reception of the World Doctors Orchestra & Emily Bear, on Tuesday evening.
The World Doctors Orchestra, founded in 2008, combines the pleasure of fine music with global medical responsibility. Three or four times a year some 100 physicians from 60 different countries exchange their white coats for evening attire and perform a benefit concert for medical aid projects.
Emily Bear, now 20 years-old, became a published composer at the age of four. She has won the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award twice, been featured on the Ellen Show, and has traveled the world – playing piano and composing music.
Members of the orchestra and Emily, their families, and friends shook hands and Premier Ellis Lorenzo Webster along with other cabinet ministers, local musicians and stakeholders for the first time, signifying new possibilities in music and tourism on the island.
Forty members of the orchestra, lead by conductor and founder Stefan Willich, will be performing classical music accompanied with jazz on piano by Emily Bear on Saturday, 7pm at the Mount Fortune Seventh Day Adventist Church. Local artists – Omalie 360, Omari Banks, Myisha Letang, Dr. Stern Willich, Jaine Rogers, Alaina Carty and St. Augustine’s Chorale – will also be performing.
Throughout the week leading up to the concert, the orchestra will be hosting master classes in music and medicine to support Anguilla’s youth and practicing hard for the upcoming concert. Emily Bear and her mother Andrea Bear, who visited the island and experienced its culture a number of times in the past eight years, came up with the idea to have the concert in Anguilla. Andrea Bear enquired of Janine Edwards of Sunset Homes and Lennox Vanterpool of Morlens School of Music, if Anguilla would be interested in having the world orchestra come to the island to perform a concert to help bring awareness, raise money and share their music.
Mrs. Bear noted: “They said yes! So I called up Setefan, the conductor, founder and brainchild [of the World Doctors Orchestra] and explained the situation. Stefan said yes, without hesitation; and here we are!”
Emily Bear added: “We came to Anguilla for the first time six or seven years ago, and our family instantly fell in love with the people, the culture and how incredible the musicians are. It has become a place very near and dear to our hearts. When we realised there had never been an orchestra in Anguilla, it just made so much sense.”
The Honourable Haydn Hughes gave remarks during the reception saying: “This is the first of its kind on the most beautiful, warm weather destination on the planet and the undisputed culinary capital of the Caribbean. I am happy to see this goal manifest into reality and I congratulate you all for accomplishing the same. May God continue to bless your fingers, your lungs and your vocal chords, thank you.”
The welcome reception ended with music performances by Omari Banks and Bankie Banks. Omari dedicated his song, Moving On to Emily Bear who listened closely – with her elbows on table and chin resting in her hands. Bankie Banks offered the crowd catharsis with his blues.
The Morlens School of Music, Sunset Homes, The Music Academy, CSuite Business Consulting and The Anguilla Tourist Board collaborated to make the reception possible.
